The initial viewer number for this week’s episode of Game of Thrones has bounced back and topped the five million mark once again. 5.131 million viewers tuned in at 9 PM, garnering a 2.6 demo rating, making this past episode the third highest-rated episode in series history.

The 11 PM repeat added 980k viewers for a total of 6.11 million on the night.

Winter Is Coming: Good news. Hopefully the week delay won’t have a negative effect on the next episode’s numbers. Either way, I think that topping True Blood‘s all-time high of 5.53 million is still within reach.

WinWolf:
oh no not again this ratings thread.. these comments make me vomit.

makes you wonder if it does more bad then good. We already know the show will go on for a few more seasons at least “unofficially” and HBO doesn’t care about ratings, just subscribers. There are a few shows on HBO that went down in the ratings each season yet they get greenlit anyway.

I agree. I can see 6 million next season, especially after the episode bearing the synopsis Tyrion is asked to perform at the Royal Wedding when Joffrey chokes, but I think it would be a stretch this season.

Nonsense. A delay, even a 1 week delay has horrendous results with every show. People are dumb and think the season has ended, not tuning in next time. They should just broadcast the episode on memorial day. Episode 9 will definetely be the lowest of the season. The finale may not be the highest of the season either. (but will rise after episode 9)

This is pretty good considering that Celebrity Apprentice final on a network channel only got 5.6 million. Not that HBO is really comparing their ratings to a network reality show. I just wanted to gloat because I hate Donald Trump so much.

Remember Camelot starting its “run” roughly around the same time as GoT? I recall reading comments on random sites of people stating Camelot was better. Obvious to anyone that hasn’t dedicated their entire life to all things King Arthur it wasn’t even close. Cheese and terrible casting all over it and it struggled to maintain 800k as it rehashed an endlessly told (and tired) story …..
sorry, not important to bring up. It just came to mind

TimeforTravel: People watch GoT because of unexpected twists and turns like the RW. It won’t ruin anything.

I agree. There is no clear-cut fan favorite upon whom the show rests. Everyone is expendable. For most shows, that would be a two-edged sword but GOT will be fine so long as interesting new characters continue to be added.

so it was mother’s day’ fault… if you would celebrate it on 8th of March, like I do, this wouldn’t have happened. :D
for ep 9. the ratings will be around 5.4, givetake 0.1. for the finale 5.8-5.9, but I dont’ think it will cross the 6 mil mark. It’s quite a stretch considering at what point we started this season (4.3). It will be a rise of a million and a half… and that’s outstanding!
Anyhow, this season of GoT is the most volatile yet, and it may surprise us, in one way… or another.

Anyone who follows these boards knows that I don’t pull punches when HBO swings and misses. That said, this episode was brilliant and it’s no wonder that the numbers will climb for the climatic finish to the season. Now, on a more sour note: the lame attempt to pass off Sophie Turner as 14 was truly cringe-worthy. Still, I’m not without hope… given the radical change in story arc for Gendry, there’s still a chance that Sansa will “sleep with the fishes” of Blackwater Bay.

S4 will easily premier to 6+m unless D&D completely mess up episode 9. And as it’s been the episode they decided to make the series for, I doubt they will. But man, I don’t want to watch it really. But I will.

You are right that the characters were aged up for the show, but you have her book age wrong. In the books, Sansa is 13 on her wedding day (she was 11 at the beginning of the book series), while in the show she’s 14 on her wedding day (but almost 15 I think) and was 13 on episode one of the first season (Cercei asked whether she had flowered and commented on what a tall 13 year old she was).

As for Sophie Turner, she’s 17 now, so she must have been 16 when they filmed. It’s not unreasonable really.

DH87: I agree. There is no clear-cut fan favorite upon whom the show rests. Everyone is expendable. For most shows, that would be a two-edged sword but GOT will be fine so long as interesting new characters continue to be added.

There certainly is a clear-cut fan favorite, and that is Daenerys. Whenever an episode goes by without her and her dragons making an appearance, there are a lot of complaints.

I think you don’t really know 14 year olds. Some of them look so grown up it’s amazing, especially since for some reasons they get womanly bodies much earlier today (and maybe hormone enhanced dairy was a thing in Westeros)

Irrelevant. The quality or content of an episode will have no impact on its own ratings, it will impact the ratings of the following episode. And did you not notice the drop of 0.65 million viewers in the week following that episode?

Summer Is Coming: so it was mother’s day’ fault… if you would celebrate it on 8th of March, like I do, this wouldn’t have happened. :DP>

Actually its not Mothers day…the break is Memorial Day – to honor the soldiers who have died. So we all go out picnic, party and watch fireworks and hear the 1812 overture (which has ZERO to do with the US- but it sounds great to fireworks) – and celebrate all the freedoms they won for us. And its when SUMMER STARTS and we can wear our white shoes again (showing my age).

I can see why HBO wouldn’t want to skew the ratings lower since that happened on both prior seasons…. by skipping that week, they’ll get a more regular curve out of the season.

You misunderstand. Everybody hated on episodes 6 and 7. After the poor reaction to 6, people said it was unsurprising that 7’s ratings weren’t as good, and that since they also didn’t like 7, they expected a further decline for 8’s ratings.

But 8’s ratings increased. Doesn’t that destroy the logic of ‘It’s the episode from the previous week that determines ratings’? Or perhaps it is just that the reaction among the book-readers here was simply decidedly more negative than the viewing audience in general.

I’m a sullied and I terrorize the unsullied when they ask to be sullied by littering them with outrageous lies I have people thinking that in ep 9 there will be alien abductions.hey if there are dragons there could be aliens.right?

The argument would be that Episode 7 had really low numbers because of a weak previous episode AND mother’s day. Episode 8 had higher numbers than episode 7 because it wasn’t mother’s day. However, because of the weak episode 7 it had 0.4 million less viewers than episode 6 did.

This argument is perfectly logical albeit we don’t have enough evidence to know if it’s correct or not.

You misunderstand. Everybody hated on episodes 6 and 7. After the poor reaction to 6, people said it was unsurprising that 7′s ratings weren’t as good, and that since they also didn’t like 7, they expected a further decline for 8′s ratings.

But 8′s ratings increased. Doesn’t that destroy the logic of ‘It’s the episode from the previous week that determines ratings’? Or perhaps it is just that the reaction among the book-readers here was simply decidedly more negative than the viewing audience in general.

Probably. And some non-readers actually thought episode 8 was slow, which blows my mind since pretty much every scene in episode 8 was fantastic and they were much more fluid and organized than in 7. Also, it seemed like a lot more happened than the last couple of episodes.

I don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever to just assume that given 10 perfectly good episodes a year, ratings charts should resemble an ascending staircase. Charts for popular shows more often resemble lightning bolts. We don’t live in a world where people consistently are able to say “I’m definitely going to be able to be there at this time to watch this show live,” and in an era of DVR and HBO Go, people are not afraid to live their lives and come to episodes on their own time.

Episode 7 was Mother’s day, not Episode 6. Presumably you mean “Episode 8 is one of those inevitable blips” – but that is not an explanation of anything. Why is it inevitable?

Ultimately the ratings of Episode 8 are entirely consistent with the hypothesis that momentum was lost in episodes 6 and 7 of the show. Is there proof? No, of course not. But people suggesting that Mothers Day was the sole significant factor for Episode 7 are not supported by the evidence.